Forex News – Week Ahead – RBNZ and Australian jobs data in focus

The week ahead will likely be a slower one, compared to this past week, in the sense that there will be fewer tier one data releases.

Monday begins with GDP data out of Japan. This will be a final revision for the fourth quarter of 2014. Data released in February showed Q4 GDP increased at 0.6% and on an annualized rate of 2.2% in the three months through December. Other data that would be interesting to watch out of Japan would be core machinery orders, Producer Prices as well as revised industrial production data and consumer confidence data.

Australia releases jobs data on Thursday. January’s unemployment figure rose to 6.4%, the highest in 13 years. While the RBA did not cut rates in its latest policy meeting, a weaker jobs number would increase the likelihood of a rate cut in the future. Also important to watch from Australia will be the NAB Business Confidence survey due on Tuesday. It is a good indicator on business sentiment of current market conditions.

Staying in the region, New Zealand will be in focus as the nation’s central bank holds a policy meeting on Wednesday. The official cash rate currently stands at 3.50% and it is expected to stay the same. The press conference following the rate decision will be important to watch.

China will release inflation data on Tuesday and industrial production on Wednesday. Both sets of data will be give some insight into the health of the world’s second largest economy. CPI data released last month fueled concerns of deflation as data showed prices rose at the slowest pace in five years at 0.8%. This was down from January’s 1.5%.

From Europe, the Sentix Investor Confidence report is due on Monday and industrial production numbers on Thursday. Meanwhile, German final CPI data are out on Thursday.

The United Kingdom is due to release manufacturing production on Wednesday and trade balance data on Thursday.

From North America, the United Sates will release Retail Sales numbers as well as jobless claims on Thursday and then PPI and the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment report on Friday. Meanwhile Canada releases unemployment data on Friday.

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